For "head down" type of work, it often helps me to start on that before looking at my email. If you have some work that you already know you want to finish toda

For "head down" type of work, it often helps me to start on that before looking at my email. If you have some work that you already know you want to finish today, start on that right away for a couple hours, with your phone/email/instant messenger notifications disabled. If you come into work, fire up your email, you may find a number of emails that you want to respond to right away, despite them being low priority. Granted, this is how I do start most of my days. But when I really need (or just want) to get an in-depth task accomplished, the best plan is to tackle that first thing. At most, I might scan my email to make sure there isn't any emails with the subject of 'immediate response required for you to keep getting a paycheck' or 'the datacenter is on fire'.